Page 112.—Willis. All that is known of this "R. Willis" is from his autobiography, the title of which is, "Mount Tabor, or Private Exercises of a Penitent Sinner, published in the yeare of his age 75, anno Dom. 1639." He is the same person who is quoted on [page 161] below.
Page 113.—His references to schoolboys, etc. Perhaps we ought not to lay much stress on these. The description of "the whining schoolboy" is from the "Seven Ages" of the cynical Jaques, who describes all these stages of human life in sneering and disparaging terms; and the other passages simply refer to the proverbial dislike of boys to go to school.
Page 114.—Thomas Tusser (1527?-1580?) was a poet and writer on agriculture. Besides his One Hundred Points of Good Husbandry (1557), he wrote Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, United to as Many of Good Wiferie (1570), etc. He was educated at Oxford, spent ten years at court, and then settled on a farm, where the rest of his life was passed.
Page 115.—In few of Shakespeare's references to school life, etc. See on You must be preeches, [page 227] above; and compare Much Ado About Nothing, ii. 1. 228:—
"Don Pedro. To be whipped? What's his fault?
Benedick. The flat transgression of a schoolboy," etc.
Page 118.—A sanctuary against fear. The allusion is to those sacred places in which criminals could take refuge and be exempt from arrest. There was such a sanctuary within the precincts of Westminster Abbey, which retained its privileges until the dissolution of the monastery, and for debtors until 1602. Compare Richard III. (ii. 4. 66), where Queen Elizabeth says: "Come, come, my boy; we will to sanctuary."
Page 122.—Hoodman-blind. In All's Well that Ends Well (iv. 3. 136), when Parolles is brought in blindfolded to his companions in arms, whom he supposes to be enemies that have captured him, one of them says aside, "Hoodman comes."
Loggats. When I was at Amherst College, forty or more years ago, we had this same exercise under the name of "loggerheads"; but I have not seen it or heard of it anywhere else.